Does Ruth Bader Ginsburg Support Eugenics?
By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country
A curious comment that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg made in a weekend interview with the New York Times Magazine is getting lots of attention in the conservative blogosphere, casting a light on abortion jurisprudence just as nominee Sonia Sotomayor begins taking questions in the Senate.
I wouldn't be surprised if Ginsburg's quote was invoked by a Republican senator or a conservative witness during Sotomayor's hearing.
Ginsburg was responding to a question about access to abortion and a 1980 Supreme Court decision that upheld the Hyde Amendment, which bars Medicaid for funding abortion:
Q: Are you talking about the distances women have to travel because in parts of the country, abortion is essentially unavailable, because there are so few doctors and clinics that do the procedure? And also, the lack of Medicaid for abortions for poor women?
JUSTICE GINSBURG: Yes, the ruling about that surprised me. [Harris v. McRae—in 1980 the court upheld the Hyde Amendment, which forbids the use of Medicaid for abortions.] Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don't want to have too many of. So that Roe was going to be then set up for Medicaid funding for abortion....
Conservatives have pounced on the lines as evidence that Ginsburg supports eugenics, or selective human breeding. "Who might those populations be, Justice Ginsburg?" asked the Family Research Council in its daily E-mail to supporters last night. "The poor? Minorities? Persons with disabilities? Residents of Appalachia?"
There's been much less chatter about this on liberal blogs, but Media Matters argues that Ginsburg was speaking about public opinion about Roe and abortion, not about her own opinion.
And yet Ginsburg shares the position that she says follows from a belief in abortion-as-population control: that Medicaid ought to fund abortions for poor women.
Still, Ginsburg isn't 100 percent clear that she's personally sympathetic to the view that abortion should be used to control the growth of certain populations.
How do you interpret Ginsburg's remarks?
Tags: abortion | Ruth Bader Ginsburg | religion
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Reader Comments
Cancer
Ruth Baden Gingsburg: I've heard sometime ago that you had cancer and have had a few set backs but you always pull thru...and thats what really galls me. You rank as one of the worst, if not the worst judge, we ever had on the supreeme court and i always wish for the worst whenever i hear that you going back to the hospital...I'm sure you know your really no good, and you really know there never was a judge as terrible eas you, and yet you strugle to remain....Why??? Please do the United States a great favor...Quit the Supreeme Court..or at least die so we don't have to listen to your stupidity..We need judges that judge by the constitution...Not judges that make laws at the bench,,Like yourself...I should be ashamed but i'll tell you why i'm not..I'm an American that loves this country and i really hate people like you that hates this country and its constitution..You know that as well as me...
Looking for the dream of a King
At her age and the effects of the possible on set of alzheimer's...she was releasing information held by a select few.
Fear and hate, no nation is safe from fascism.
Why aim to remove an entire race such as the black race?
Those that take evolution to the extreme and see it as their obligation to mankind to exterminate an entire race of people...even with a holocaust museum in our nations capitol, and yet abortion and sterilization is the norm?
How ironic that she is a supreme court justice...and unable to judge others by the content of their character but only by the color of their skin. ( Pray for deliverance )
The Minority "Problem"
Abortion is used in this country to keep minorities in the minority. Sanger was a racist. Planned Parenthood and the 1973 Supreme Court Justices who voted to allow abortion are guilty of more murders than Hitler, Stalin, Mao, & Saddam put together.
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